Is Dirty Work a good album, just average with several good songs, but weak others, or their worst to date?

Is Future Hearts a better try at what they attempted to do on Dirty Work, or somehow worse?

Is their song 'Missing You' a boring acoustic ballad, or an uplifting song about hanging in there through tough times?

What's their best album? You'll get some saying Nothing Personal, some saying Dirty Work, and some saying Don't Panic.

Are they better as an Emo Pop band, or just a Pop Punk band? You'll get fans arguing on both sides, mostly the Pop-loving teenage girls versus the more Emo Pop/Punk-loving others.

Were they better before, or after adding electronics to their instrumentations, or are they on the same level, it's just that some songs are better than others?

The most baffling of all, are they better than Simple Plan, or are they their American equivalents? Admittedly, this is most likely a small section of people who have actually made up their minds about that, let alone thought about it, but you might encounter them.

Their first single from Fueled By Ramen, 'Dirty Laundry,' is already causing this, with complaints ranging from, "It's too Pop," to "The song isn't good enough to warrant being a single from a new album," to "Fueled By Ramen is forcing All Time Low to be more overtly Pop," to "It's great."

Contested Sequel: While, at first, they either matched their previous releases or did better than the last album, starting with their fourth album, Dirty Work, they've had a pretty hit-or-miss track record. While it's hard to call Dirty Work a terrible album, it was definitely a let down at the least, stemming from behind the scenes stuff and the choice of direction the band wanted to go into, so it's hard to call it a good album either. Then they released Don't Panic, which is hailed by many fans as their best album to date, as it rerailed their direction and sound after Dirty Work sort of derailed it. Then their next album, Future Hearts was either a good album with a few duds, a bad album, or a serviceable album. Then Last Young Renegade came out and many fans have declared it their worst album to date for them for some reason repeating every mistake from Dirty Work's production and made several more in the process. All three of the albums are the result of the band trying to mix a more Pop sound into their Pop Punk/Emo Pop sound, just to different results, so it seems that All Time Low don't belong in the Pop world from how those albums have turned out.

Ear Worm: Many. 'Dear Maria, Count Me In' is a notable example. Pretty much every song on Don't Panic. When they wanted to put everything they had into that album, they meant it.

Hype Backlash: For all the hype surrounding Last Young Renegade as a concept album that "explores the different versions" of Alex Gaskarth from over the years, released on a major label, and is the follow up to two good albums from them, you'd expect the music to be better, the singles to be released in an order than actually makes sense, the fandom, as a whole, to be more open to it, the album to sell better in its opening week compared to its immediate predecessor, and for it to stay in the Billboard 200 for more than a week before falling off the very next week from it. I'm sorry to say, but Last Young Renegade has fallen victim to this trope for many.

Missing Episode: Actually, it's more like "missing songs." On top of not having performed many of them live in years, their first EP, The Three Words to Remember in Dealing with the End EP, and album, The Party Scene, released through Emerald Moon Records cannot be legally bought anywhere. The only place you can find those songs is YouTube, though even that's doubtful for some of the songs from the album, as they rerecorded 5 of them after signing to Hopeless and the original versions keep getting blocked by the label because they're earlier recordings of the same songs, and Hopeless privated the EP's songs they had uploaded for some reason and apparently have a very strict copyright blocking policy in place on YouTube. Basically, if they want uploads of a song they own the rights to gone, they turn the copyright claiming to insane levels. Luckily, though, Emerald Moon has uploaded higher quality remasters of the songs, so enjoy.

Newer Than They Think: Given the sounds of their first 6 albums, you'd be forgiven if you thought they released their music earlier than their albums came out. Having obvious influences from the likes of Blink-182, Green Day, and Fall Out Boy on those albums, it might astonish you to find out they first formed the band in 2003 when they were in high school and first got popular with their second album in 2007, a years after graduating.

Opinion Myopia: Alex seemed to have had a bit of this before The Young Renegades Tour began, as he took to Twitter to tell fans that he can't include a lot of the songs they were requesting they play on the tour. While his point is understandable, since they have 7 albums and change worth of songs at this point, the points of the fans are also understandable, as the only song from their second album, So Wrong, It's Right, that they still play live consistently is 'Dear Maria, Count Me In', only a few songs from their third, Nothing Personal, the only songs that were good from their fourth, Dirty Work, the singles from Don't Panic and Future Hearts, and the first 4 songs from Last Young Renegade, totaling 17 songs, 20 if you count the usual 3 encore songs they play. At 3-5 minutes a pop, each song would only add up to an hour to an hour and twenty to thirty minutes at most. Extend the time by at least 15-20 minutes, and they could easily fit more songs from their first 3 albums into the runtime. It's especially glaring since they rarely perform any of the songs from their first album, The Party Scene, and their first Hopeless EP, Put Up, or Shut Up, anymore aside from 'Jasey Rae' or one-offs at some shows if they feel generous. If Green Day can have 23 songs for their base concert and 4 for encores made up of songs from as far back as their first album across 12 albums and change from their 30 year history, All Time Low should be able to do the same without twice as much history or albums.

Shipping: Among the most contested shippings of band members and others include "Jalex" (Jack/Alex) and "Taylex" (Tay Jardine/Alex).

Tear Jerker: Quite a few. First off, there's the song 'Lullabies,' which is about lead singer Alex Gaskarth's brother Tom, who committed suicide. Also, its unreleased counterparts, 'Light the Way' and 'We All Fall Down' - which are all the same thing.

'Remembering Sunday' is another, which is supposedly about a girl Alex fell in love with after a one-night stand, but when he tried to find her again, she had disappeared. Then there's 'Memories That Fade Like Photographs,' which is about claiming to never forget the memories of a past romance despite those memories being painful and begging the other person to do the same. Basically, if it's a slow song, you can guarantee it's going to be sad in some way.

Off of Dirty Work, we have 'A Daydream Away' which would seem to be about reminiscing about the guy's previous relationships/past antics.

Also off Dirty Work, we have 'Return The Favor,' which is about giving everything your all in a relationship and getting nothing in return as well as 'No Idea,' which is a song about liking somebody who has no idea. Also, 'Get Down On Your Knees And Tell Me You Love' me conveys a relatively sad message, despite how catchy and upbeat the song is.

'Therapy' counts as this too.

'Weightless' is pretty damn sad, seeing as it talks about feeling stuck in a routine and waiting on things to change, and doing stupid things to feel alive

They Copied It, So It Sucks: They've been accused of ripping off Fall Out Boy, as is the common accusation of any band even remotely similar to them. Never mind the fact that they were formed before Fall Out Boy was popular and started as a blink-182 cover band. Fall Out Boy themselves don't seem to find the comparison fair, considering they're good friends with All Time Low, brought them on tour with them and Pete Wentz regrets not having his record label sign them when he had the chance.

With them going more Pop in 2017, there are even more accusations coming at them, as Fall Out Boy did the exact same thing in 2013 to mostly similar results of their music actually going down in quality rather than up or staying the same level.

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The album Last Young Renegade has this in spades. First, it's said to be a concept album meant to be written from the different points of view Alex has had over the years. The title of the album is, most likely, meant to be the title of a character representative of Alex, if not Alex himself, which makes sense from that point of view. However, the concept really doesn't go anywhere and, ultimately, it just comes off as an album of loosely connected Pop songs that sound like the band was just screwing around in the recording studio with no direction while recording the songs. Then, the title song is just a love song Alex wrote, not about any central idea or anything, just a love song. Compare it to American Idiot. It centers around the character of the Jesus of Suburbia/St. Jimmy and his exploration of life after high school. He's frustrated with the government, he has no direction in life, he goes on the road, he meets a girl, loses her, has a breakdown, then goes home and reunites with his old friends. What is the story of LYR? You can't really nail it down because the album's all over the place and disconnected, almost like it was a collection of songs the band never recorded before that were put on an album. Considering the band has a great history with storytelling in their songs, an album-long story about a character and their story would be really interesting to hear from them, even in their new Pop style.

Tough Act to Follow: Dirty Work to Nothing Personal and Future Hearts to Don't Panic.Dirty Work for having a lesser quality to the sound, varying success, or lack thereof, to mix more of a Pop influence into their sound, & ultimately forgettable songs. Future Hearts for not having a lot of the punch Don't Panic did, trying to do what Dirty Work did, only better, but only being a marginally better try at mixing more Pop into their sound rather than sticking with the Emo Pop sound they'd perfected already, & having less forgettable songs than Dirty Work, but forgettable nonetheless.

Don't Panic was such a big success that even Last Young Renegade can't escape its shadow.

Vindicated by History: For those who hated Dirty Work and/or Future Hearts, a lot of them find Last Young Renegade is somehow worse than either of them. And we'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, some don't agree, as the editing history of this page can tell you.

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